News Releases from Region 6

(Dallas, Texas – April 19, 2010) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that the University of Central Oklahoma was recognized as the 2009-2010 Individual Conference Champion for using more green power than any other school in the Lone Star Conference. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has made the largest individual purchase of green power within a qualifying conference.

The University of Central Oklahoma beat its conference rivals by purchasing 26 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 100 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. The University of Central Oklahoma purchases a utility green power product from Edmond Electric,which helps to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the campus’s electricity use.

“The University of Central Oklahoma is leading the way in showing other colleges and universities how green power can protect the environment,” said EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz. “Taking action on climate change and improving air quality are two of our highest priorities. By using renewable power sources, we can change the way we generate electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

EPA estimates that the University of Central Oklahoma’s purchase of 26 million kilowatt-hours of green power is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity use of more than 2,000 average American homes each year, or has the equivalent impact of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 4,000 passenger cars annually.

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas and low-impact hydropower. Green power electricity generates less pollution than conventional power and produces no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Green power purchases support the development of new, renewable generation resources nationwide.

The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to use green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The Partnership currently has more than 1,200 Partner organizations voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, small-and- medium-sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, and colleges and universities. For additional information please see www.epa.gov/greenpower.

EPA ranks collegiate athletic conferences by the total amount of green power used by their member schools. To be eligible, each school in the conference has to qualify as an EPA Green Power Partner and each conference has to collectively use at least 10 million kilowatt-hours of green power.

In addition to the University of Central Oklahoma, EPA's Green Power Partnership also recognized 25 other schools as individual conference champions. In total, the colleges and universities represented in this year's challenge are buying more than one billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. EPA estimates that this amount of green power has the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 160,000 vehicles.

EPA also announced the kickoff of the 2010-2011 Green Power Challenge this week, which is scheduled to conclude in the spring of 2011. EPA’s Green Power Challenge is open to all U.S. colleges, universities and conferences. To qualify, a collegiate athletic conference must include at least one school that qualifies as a Green Power Partner, and the conference must collectively meet EPA’s minimum conference purchase requirement. For more information, visit: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.